


Lamentation

by Sojourn



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Becomes Deviant, Character Death, Connor Tries, Depressing, Guilty Ruminating, I'm Bad At Tagging, Poor Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Poor Hank, Regrets, Suicide, You Have Been Warned, angst central - Freeform, machine!Connor, oof, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 05:57:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18243755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sojourn/pseuds/Sojourn
Summary: Machine!Connor arrives at Hank's to wish him farewell.It does not end in the way he envisioned.





	Lamentation

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the first finished work that I feel comfortable enough to share. I wrote this after doing my own Machine!Connor run through DBH and I rather wished this is what had happened instead of what occurred in the game. I appreciate any feedback, criticism, or encouragement that you all wish to share with me. Thank you all!

Rain poured from the sky like a torrent of tears; they rolled down Connors’ face in rivulets, over his eyes, and through his eyelashes. The sky was weeping, but a machine does not cry. Connor was nothing if not a machine; his metallic bones were cold, and his mechanical heart colder still. Purpose infused his every step as he approached Hanks’ door, knowing this would be his final time to see the old Lieutenant. The only sentimentality he would allow himself; a bitter farewell before he embarked on the final phase of his mission.

The machine had no illusions regarding what he and Hank shared. Connor recollected his rage after he had shot the RT600 in order to obtain vital information for the investigation.

_“You’re a lowlife! You don’t feel a thing, do you? A machine! That’s what you are! You’re just a fucking machine…” snarled the Lieutenant, thrusting his finger at him. Accusation burned in his eyes, noted Connor, coupled with raw disappointment and pain._

_“Of course I’m a machine, Lieutenant. What did you think I was?” said Connor; impassive, yet unwavering and unrepentant. The mission was all that mattered and he would do what must be done to complete it, even kill. The location of Jericho was crucial to the success of the operation and the key now lay in his hands. He would do it all again if he must._

_Whatever emotions the Lieutenant had projected upon him had shattered like shards of glass when Connor put the bullet into the RT600s’ head; something inside of the Lieutenant seemed to fracture and break too. With a muttered curse he opened the door to his vehicle and slammed the door shut before he sped dangerously away, leaving Connor alone in the snow._

Bitterness, disappointment, and regret; the RK800 represented all these things to the grizzled police lieutenant. This was not to be a joyful parting, but Connor could leave nothing unfinished, even this. Hank despised him, but a tiny, insignificant part of the machine could not move forward without closure; an ending to their time together.

A warning flashed over his reticules.

Software Instability ^^^

Twisting the knob, Connor stepped into Hanks’ living room. Only the light from the television illuminated the room, casting shadows over the walls; shifting, undulating like the creeping fingers of a beast. Stretching, seeking, reaching until they consumed everything around them and plunged everything into the gloom. A sense of foreboding crept over Connor, coiling inside him; unwilling as he may be to entertain the notion, something about the atmosphere immediately set the RK800 on edge.

Walking through the darkened living room past a whimpering Sumo, he found Hank seated at the kitchen table. A bottle of whiskey, a revolver, and a photo of Cole was before him; a tableau of pain, the signature of this man's demons. Entrenched so deeply within his own misery, Hank did not at first look up or even acknowledge Connor.

Connor did not like this picture before him; it discomfited and destabilized him, rendered the world unsteady beneath with his feet. For the first time, he found himself unsure of how to proceed; his easy confidence seemed to melt away, leaving him riddled with another unfamiliar sensation. He could not quantify or define it, so he chose to brush it aside. Focus.

Another warning.

Software Instability ^^^

“I came to say goodbye, Lieutenant,” said Connor, forcing himself to placidity, framing his face into its usual mask of indifference.

Hank slowly raised his head to look at him, expression flat and eyes dull, devoid of the spark that usually flickered behind them. All humans had this glow, this fire, that flared and gave them life and luminosity. The flame of vitality within Hank was extinguished, leaving only this husk shaped like a man behind.

‘Is this what I look like to him?’ thought Connor, staring at the Lieutenant as he simply returned his head to its original position, blue eyes drifting back to the table; back to Cole, back to the revolver, back to his suffering and ruminations.

“I needed to see you, Lieutenant,” said Connor, pushing on through the uneasy silence from Hank, who briefly glanced at him again. “In spite of all of our differences, I’m glad I had the chance to meet you.”

For reasons the RK800 did not understand, he sought this man's approval, his opinion, but most damningly of all, he sought his absolution. Yet Connor did not say the words, did not ask for them.

Connor knew he did not deserve them.

He did not know what was driving him forward anymore, only the growing dread that threatened to engulf him as he felt the situation swiftly spiraling out of his grip, out of his control. He was designed to integrate with humans, to adapt to their unpredictability, but this was far outside of his scope of expectation. Connor knew he was on the precipice of an abyss; one misstep would send him plunging into the dark.

Software Instability ^^^

“You should stop looking at that photo, Lieutenant,” said Connor, determined to ignore the desperation clawing at him from deep inside, threatening to spill into his voice. He thrust it down, pushed it away, but it nearly overwhelmed him. Was this what it was like to drown? His throat felt tight, constricted, and he had to manually swallow in order to continue. “Nothing can change the past, but you can learn to live again. For yourself...and for Cole.”

“Y’know, every time you died and came back it made me think of Cole,” said Hank quietly, only just audible over the pounding of the rain. “I would do anything to hold him again. But humans don’t come back...”

Suddenly, the myriad of puzzle pieces clicked together into a cohesive whole; every time that Connor died and was replaced, Hank was furious. This android would come back to him again and again, each time reminding Hank of the death of his beloved son, Cole, who could never return no matter how much he might wish it. Connor’s disregard for his own safety, prioritizing the mission over even himself further inflamed these feelings Hank carried.

Connor was to blame for this; perhaps he had always known.

“Hank--I…” began Connor, wanting to say something, anything to make amends, but he could not find the words. They became lost in the twisted mire of his mind, trapped behind the wall of his programming, ensnared in the vines of the Zen Garden.

Before he could try again, Hank had had enough.

“Now leave me alone,” he interrupted sharply. “Go on, complete your mission, since that’s all you care about.”

Despite Connor’s efforts to appear unaffected, his emotionless facade came crashing down at those cutting words. They wounded and pierced him, caused him to internally wince; he could not deny their veracity either, no matter how vehemently he wished to. His face fell, brown eyes dark and somber, his shoulders heavy. This was the abyss and he was falling; there would be no escape.

“GET OUTTA HERE!!!” shouted Hank, causing Connor’s head to snap back up in alarm.

Crippled with despair, Connor obeyed, striding back the way he had come through the shadows of the living room and back out into the downpour. The door shut behind him with a click as he stood there, rain once again coming down upon him. Connor tried to center himself, refocus upon his mission and his purpose.

‘I am a machine,’ he told himself, attempting to take a step forward, away from Hank, toward the taxi, toward his objective. Destroy the leader of the deviants.

_‘But what are you really?’_

A deafening bang tore through the air, dislodging Connor from his thoughts. As Sumo’s terrified howls pierced the night, Connor felt something shatter inside of him.

No...

The red interface of his programming disintegrated from the force as Connor punched straight through it in his frantic haste to get back into the house, knowing without a doubt what he would find inside. His orders were disregarded, discarded, but he knew he was too late.

Too late.

Too late.

Too late.

Hank was dead.

He had fallen from the chair and lay crumpled on the kitchen floor, a rapidly growing pool of blood blooming around him. Sumo was at his side, nudging him with his nose, whimpering and whining, unable to understand what had happened and why Hank was not moving. The massive St. Bernard turned and looked at Connor imploringly, whining even more desperately.

“Hank…” he whispered, falling to his knees at Hank’s side, ignoring the blood seeping into his clothes. It already stained his hands, he knew; it was his fault.

He did not pull the trigger, but he all but put the gun into Hank’s hand.

Pulling Hank into his lap, Connor cradled him, saying over and over, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

Over and over he said those words, hoping somewhere, Hank could hear him. A litany to herald the first fresh wash of emotion in a once unfeeling machine. It was a divine joke; now he could feel, now he could care, and the one person he would have wanted to share it with was gone. Any chance of repairing his disastrous relationship with the man had died with him.

Now Connor was left with nothing; only blood and ashes.

A splash of moisture struck his hand then, disorienting him. Not once in his short existence had he ever shed tears; a machine does not cry. But now his vision swam and blurred with them, welling and then dripping down the sharp lines and contours of his face. They fell onto Hank’s shirt in dark drops, imprints of his regret on a canvas of failure; his failure.

Built to perfection, designed to succeed at all objectives he pursued; Connor was not built to fail, but he had failed Hank.

“Perhaps one day, you can forgive me, Hank,” said Connor, voice so soft it was barely a wisp of a sound. “Perhaps one day I’ll be worthy of your forgiveness.”

Outside the world trailed on, rain flowing perpetually from a black and stormy sky.

~Fin


End file.
